


Sparks and Consolations

by roguelightning



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Teslen Appreciation Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-06 00:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21217913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguelightning/pseuds/roguelightning
Summary: She sees the tower lighting at night and she knows he needs her at his side. After all, what is a small favour between friends?





	Sparks and Consolations

That night, the tower sang its swan song. The atmosphere around it was charged, a slight feel of dread in the air. Nobody dared to come near it, and it was probably all for the better. There were legends of what happened if you tried to move past the fence without having permission from the owner. Tales that ended in either blood or electricity, or a very unpleasant combination of both.

No, that wasn’t a place a sensible woman should have been in, especially that time at night. Then again, Helen had never been a sensible woman. If she was to take his word on it, that was exactly why he had fallen in love with her. She was inclined to do so, she realized, a small smile playing on her lips. After all, she supposed she had been an occasional pain in the ass for him and she knew firsthand how enticing that could be at times.

Finding him was easy enough once she went past the gate and inside the tower. He had shown her that entrance two years before, in 1901, when she had come to ask his help. That had been a stupid and selfish move, come to think at it. She had needed help with nitroglycerine and that was a chemist’s job more than anything. And yet somehow she decided that if she was to involve another member of The Five in this little adventure of hers, it had to be Nikola and not Nigel. William would have lectured her for hours about this. Lucky for her, it wasn’t like he was around to do that – after all, his grandfather hadn’t even been born at the time.

He was sat at his desk and he barely flinched when she entered the room, refusing to turn around.

“Listen, I don’t know who you are or how you got inside here, but I’ll have you know I’m in a very bad mood and you definitely don’t want to be around me,” he growled. “Normally, I would kill you, but a friend of mine would hate that,” he muttered. “And as it happens, she’s brilliant and gorgeous so I tend to listen to her. So I’ll give you three seconds to leave.”

“You can’t outrun a vampire in 3 seconds, Nikola,” Helen said, a smile playing on her lips. “So I don’t think your friend would be too impressed with this display of mercy on your side.”

“Helen, I thought you were in London,” Nikola said as he turned around and faced her.

“Well obviously you were wrong.” He wasn’t, actually, but that was a story for another day. “I was in the neighborhood and I saw the light show. Figured you could use somebody to talk to.”

“The tower doesn’t exactly have a neighborhood, Helen,” Nikola pointed out.

“Semantics,” she shrugged as she sat on his desk. “So, what’s with the show?”

“Oh, that,” Nikola sighed as he threw her a letter. The paper was crumbled and burnt at the sides, but she could still pick up a phrase from it. “I have received your letter and in reply would say that I should not feel disposed at present to make any further advances_”_, she read.

“Morgan?”

“Yeah. Bastard thinks he can get out of this. He promised me that he would help me, damn it,” Nikola said as he paced around the room. He slammed his palm on a controller and the tower hummed in response, suddenly heavy with electricity. He half expected her to flinch at that, but she remained there, unmoved.

“Seriously, Helen, I would appreciate your company on any other day, and I had some ideas about you and me and this tower, but-“

“Bad time?”

“For somebody who is not immune to electricity, pretty much.”

“So what is your plan, exactly? Leave the town in the dark again?”

“I did that once and everybody is holding it against me,” Nikola muttered. “I don’t know, Helen. I really don’t know. This was supposed to be my greatest achievement and now it will all go to hell, just because some dickhead decided that he wouldn’t benefit from it so why bother in the first place.”

“Then find someone else.”

“Like who, exactly? You know as well as I do that if Morgan says you’re a risky investment, everybody will believe it.”

“Then maybe-“

“If you’re going to suggest I should play patsy with a government, any government, forget it. I’ve done that in the past and we both know how that went.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Helen smiled. “Ditching the government sounds like a good idea at times, I know that. What about Anne? You and her were on good terms last time I checked. Maybe she can convince her father.”

“When was the last time you checked, exactly?”

“I don’t know, one or two years ago.”

“Yeah I thought so. I might have… suggested that I’m taken.”

“And are you?”

“Taken?” Nikola asked, a smirk playing on his lips as he closed the distance between them. “You tell me.”

“Not that I know of,” Helen panted as her eyes fell on his lips.

“So you’re still denying what happened last year, good to know,” Nikola spat at her as he turned away. He placed a palm on the wall, flooding it with electricity. This caused sparks to fly in the air and she took a step back from him. His hair stood up, charged with electricity, and when he turned to watch her, his eyes were black.

“I’m sorry, Helen,” he said with a sigh when he saw her look. “I told you, I’m not in the best mood right now. This was supposed to be my breakthrough, my one gift to humanity, and now I lost it.”

“You already gave humanity a lot, Nikola,” she said as she closed the distance between them and placed her hand on his arm. “I’m not saying they’re grateful enough to you, or that they will ever be, for that matter, but you are an amazing scientist and nobody can take that away from you.”

“That’s not enough,” he sighed. “Maybe you’re happy with living in the shadows, but I’m not. I want people to acknowledge me. Is that so hard to understand?”

“No. But maybe they will, one day. You’ll be there to see it no matter how long it takes, come to think at it.”

“Thanks to you, yes. But I will have to die one day. At least in the public eye. So if this happens after I’m dead, I can’t exactly take credit, can I?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Helen smiled. “Until then, you could live with the fact that a certain woman from London is very impressed with you.” That got his attention, it seemed, because he looked at her with a hopeful look, a spark playing in his eyes.

“Scientifically speaking, of course,” Helen smiled. It reminded her too much of when he got devamped. He didn’t know about that yet, of course, but he had watched her with that same vulnerable and yet hopeful look. She was never to let him know that, of course, but she found him irresistible when he did that.

“Of course,” Nikola sighed. “So last year when you kissed me was just a onetime thing.”

“I didn’t say that,” she said, perhaps a little faster than she should have.

“No, what you said actually was that I was crazy and you never kissed me. I believe those were your exact words. So I suppose this is progress.”

“Did I say that?”

“Yeah,” he said and she mentally cursed herself.

“Well sometimes I speak without thinking, I suppose,” she said with a soft smile.

“Why are you here, Helen?” Nikola asked with a sigh. “If this is going to end up with you gone in the morning again-“

“I’m here because you need someone to make you feel better,” Helen shrugged. “So tell me. What can I do?”

“A lot of things, actually,” he said with a smirk. His tongue flicked over his lips briefly as he seemed to ponder her offer. “Question is, what are you willing to do?”

“I’m sure you can think of something.” She took a step back and leaned against the console, her eyes never leaving his.

“Stay,” he whispered on a pleading tone as he closed the distance between them. “At least a few days, if nothing else. And whatever we end up doing tonight, don’t pretend it never happened afterwards.”

“No to the first one,” Helen said with a sigh. “As for the second one, what can I say? Make it memorable and maybe I’ll remember this time.” She said that on a joking tone, but he was having none of that.

“So I didn’t do well enough last time, is this what you’re telling me?” he asked as he let his finger pass over her lips. “Because I remember everything,” he whispered against her lips, unable to contain a smirk as he noticed her breath hitched at that. “Your lips, moving in perfect sync with mine. That delicious sound you made when my tongue met yours. Your taste.”

“Yes, it’s starting to come back to me now,” she panted, her fingers digging in the console. She had to do something to restrain herself from jumping on him right there, but it was an almost impossible task. He was deliciously close to her, pressing her back in the console, his body hard against her own.

“Good,” he whispered as his knee parted her legs. He leaned against her with all his weight, causing her to moan as she felt his hardness pressing against her thigh. His tongue found her neck and tortured it with soft flicks, going up and down against its length before he replaced it with his lips.

“Nikola, please,” she begged between her teeth as she felt her knees turn to jelly. This was stupid and dangerous… and also the most pleasurable thing that had been done to her in more than a century.

“You did say you’d do anything,” Nikola mused as his arms snaked behind her, his fingers briefly touching her waist in their trail.

“Yes.”

“Except staying afterwards,” he sighed as he pushed down the lever behind her, igniting the tower once again. Before she could figure out what had happened, he was gone to the other side of the room, watching her with an amused look on his face.

“I’ll regret this in the morning probably,” he said as his gaze trailed all over her body in a way that made her feel naked under his eyes. “But I’m not sure I can handle you leaving again if we do this.”

“So you’re just going to leave me like that?” she asked, unable to believe her ears.

“You mean all hot and bothered and wanting nothing more than to take me?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah,” Nikola said, a mischievous grin forming on his lips. “I think I’ll do just that. You can stay, though. There’s wine in the cupboard, you can help yourself if you’d like. I’ll make the show safe for you, but I have to let go of some steam and-“

“Well-“ Helen started to say. She crossed her legs, throwing him a wanton look, and in a second he was back to her side again.

“You really thought I won’t hold a little grudge against you after last year?” he asked on an amused tone. “It just sucks when somebody does this to you, doesn’t it?” he winked at her before heading to the console.

**Author's Note:**

> For Teslen appreciation week, day 4. Writing prompt - Sparks


End file.
